PITTSBURGH -- Scott Werner left bloody fingerprints on the duct tape police found binding the ankles of his wife's body, a forensics expert testified Wednesday. Fingerprint expert Wayne Reutzel testified at an Allegheny County Coroner's inquest into the June 24 death of Edith "Dee Dee" Werner, 36, in her estranged husband's home along Reaghard Drive, West Deer. Reutzel told coroner's solicitor Tim Uhrich that he matched prints on the white duct tape to prints he took from Scott Werner, 46. Uhrich held a charge of homicide against Scott Werner for trial. Along with binding her ankles, police testified that Scott Werner also bound his wife's wrists and mouth before stabbing her 13 times. Police and family members discovered Werner's body under a blanket in the basement of the family home. "Once we lifted it up, we saw her hands and face, and they were bound and gagged," West Deer police Sgt. William Bailey testified. "We just put the blanket back down because it was obvious she was deceased." Bailey also testified he knew Edith Werner and knew that she had left her allegedly abusive husband just days earlier to live with her mother. Police were called to Scott Werner's home about 1:30 p.m. when Edith's mother notified them that Edith left the house in a hurry after receiving an early morning phone call and hadn't been heard from since. A neighbor testified that about 6:40 a.m., she saw Scott Werner drive through a stop sign at the end of Reaghard Drive and pull away with his 10-year-old daughter, Marisa, in his truck. The incident sparked an Amber Alert for the girl. State police Cpl. James Shaftic testified that when he and another trooper stopped Werner in Venango County late that afternoon, he asked them not to tell Marisa what he had done, although he didn't specify to police what that was. "He remarked he wished we had just let him go so he could just go home and end his life," Shaftic testified. During Wednesday's hearing, Scott Werner sat with his hands folded and his head bent down. His attorney, Paul Boas, told reporters afterward that Werner's state of mind wasn't good, although he wouldn't comment on whether Werner was suicidal. Edith Werner's mother, whom Assistant District Attorney Ed Borkowski had described as too emotionally fragile to testify, left the courtroom without speaking to reporters. She was shielded from cameras by a phalanx of family and police officers. Scott Werner remains in the Allegheny County Jail awaiting trial.

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